Li Shimin faked his death? Then I will be powerful enough to conquer the world!

On the third day after Li Hong's body lay in state, the candlelight in the Liangyi Hall of the Taiji Palace was dim.

White gauze curtains hung from the beams of the hall, casting a pale shadow over the coffin parked on the west side. The sandalwood coffin was covered with black brocade patterned with the Big Dipper embroidered with silver thread, which was exactly the regulation for the funeral ceremony of the Crown Prince of the Eastern Palace.

The incense from the copper crane furnace in the corner of the hall was still wafting, but it could not cover up the faint smell of medicine in the air - that was the ginseng, Poria and Atractylodes powder that Li Zhi had to drink every day, mixed with the borneol that had lingered on Wu Meiniang's clothes, weaving a sticky mist on the blue brick ground.

Li Zhi sat on the armchair in the center of the main hall, his knees covered with a black fox fur coat, and his knuckles gripped a roll of yellow silk secret reports on the desk, the edges of which were frayed from repeated reading.

He looked at Wu Meiniang walking down the stairs and saw that she was not wearing the Queen's robe today, but only a plain white silk dress, with her black hair loosely tied up with a mutton-fat jade hairpin - that was the one Li Hong had picked for her at the Luoyang market last year. The hairpin had a lotus carved on it, but now it glowed coldly under the candlelight, like a piece of frozen snow.

"I have made you the Queen of Heaven, on an equal footing with me."

His voice was low and hoarse from long-term illness. When the last syllable fell on the four words "equal", his knuckles unconsciously tapped the "Yonghui Code" on the table.

"Throughout the dynasties, there have never been two saints ruling the country. From the day I first saw you at Ganye Temple, I knew that I would eventually share this world with you."

Wu Meiniang's fingers hanging in her sleeves suddenly tightened, and the hem of her silk skirt was wrinkled by the sweat from her palms.

She recalled the stormy night two years ago when Li Zhi banged his head in pain against the pillar. She held his trembling body tightly and listened to him say in a hoarse voice in her ear, "Mei Niang, watch over this country for me."

Over the years, she had written countless "yes" on memorials with her red pen, but she never thought that today she would be looked at by her son in such a way in front of his spirit.

"Since you became the Queen, you promoted Liu Rengui to be in charge of Qingzhou's maritime transport, and Hao Chujun to be in charge of the Ministry of Personnel's Examination and Reward Department."

Li Zhi suddenly pushed the secret report to the edge of the table. The red mark on the yellow silk, "The Queen's followers are spread throughout the six ministries," was painful to the eyes. "Even half of Hong'er's officials in the Eastern Palace are from your old subordinates - I turned a blind eye to all this."

He suddenly coughed, and covered the bloodshot lips with a handkerchief. "I know you love power."

"I know you feel insecure, so giving you power is like giving you armor to protect yourself."

Palace Empress Wu Meiniang looked at the fox fur coat on Li Zhi's knees - it was sewn by Li Hong last winter, and he said, "Father is afraid of cold, so I want to choose the warmest fox fur in the northern frontier."

At this moment, the tassels hanging from the edge of the fox fur swept across the blue bricks, just like the arc of the corner of his father's dragon robe when he was a child pulling on it and acting coquettishly.

"But I don't understand," Li Zhi suddenly raised his voice, the bloodstains on the handkerchief glowing dark red in the candlelight, "Hong'er is our eldest son, the crown prince of the Tang Dynasty!"

"When he was regent, he reduced taxes in Guanzhong and personally examined the files of death row prisoners. Everyone said that the Eastern Palace had the appearance of a benevolent ruler—"

He suddenly choked up, pointing his knuckles at the coffin in the side hall, "How could you...how could you let him become a sacrifice for power?"

Wu Meiniang widened her eyes and looked at the man in front of her in disbelief.

She recalled the day when Li Hong was one year old. The child clutched the hairpin on her temples amidst a pile of jade tablets, writing brushes, ink and abacus. Li Zhi hugged the child and laughed until tears came out, saying, "Hong'er will surely be a loving mother in the future."

Later, as the child grew up, every time she reviewed memorials until late at night, he would always warm a cup of tea with his own hands, on which was engraved the four words "May your Majesty be well" - at this moment, the teacup was placed on the desk in the side hall, and the remaining tea in it had long since gone cold.

"Your Majesty...what are you talking about?" Her voice trembled, and the embroidered shoes under her silk skirt rolled over the snow grains in the cracks between the blue bricks. "You said I killed Hong'er?"

Li Zhi closed his eyes and sighed deeply. The candlelight on his desk suddenly crackled, illuminating the dark circles under his eyes. "Isn't that right? My headache is getting worse day by day. The imperial physician says I won't last much longer."

"If Hong'er succeeds to the throne, the first person I'll purge will be the person you promoted—he's too much like me, and I won't tolerate factionalism."

He suddenly sneered, "Hong'er is dead, and you are the Queen of Heaven. This world..."

"Shut up!" Wu Meiniang suddenly rushed forward, her silk skirt sweeping across the table. The teacup on the table fell to the ground with a "clatter", and the broken porcelain pieces splashed at Li Zhi's feet. "Even a tiger won't eat its own cubs, let alone I am his biological mother!"

She pulled open her left sleeve, revealing a light brown scar on her forearm. "This is the year Hong'er had smallpox. I was afraid he'd scratch, so I held him in my arms all night, and his nails scratched me! You worried the smallpox was contagious and wanted to send him to another palace. I begged you to do that!"

Later, when the child recovered, she became extremely thin and unrecognizable. Holding the child's little clothes, she said, "As long as Hong'er is well, I don't mind anything." But now, those days and nights of care have become a disguise in the eyes of those around her.

"Do you think I will believe it?"

The hall suddenly became eerily quiet, with only the dripping sound of the clepsydra "tick-tick", interrupting the silence between the two people.

"Hahahahaha..."

Wu Meiniang suddenly laughed, tears falling onto her silk skirt. "So, in your Majesty's heart, I'm a vicious woman who would even poison her own child. Back then at Ganye Temple, you said, 'I will never let down the Tathagata, I will never let you down.' Later, when you were crowned Queen, you said, 'Meiniang and I, should be the model couple for all eternity.' But now you're stabbing me in the heart with the cruelest knife."

She staggered back two steps, leaned against the corridor pillar, and looked at the coffin in the side hall. "Hong'er, if you knew in the afterlife, would you have ever imagined that your parents would be so suspicious of each other in front of your coffin?"

Li Zhi looked at her trembling shoulders and suddenly remembered what he saw in the study in the East Palace last night.

Li Hong's desk was covered with unfinished memorials, and beneath his inkstone was a note in childish handwriting: "Tomorrow I will give my mother her favorite pomegranate paste. Remember to ask the Imperial Food Bureau to use less sugar; she finds it too sweet."

"Perhaps..." He finally spoke, his voice so hoarse that it was almost inaudible, "I am wrong."

"Or maybe I'm not wrong."

Wu Meiniang didn't say anything, just stared at the broken porcelain pieces on the blue bricks.

Those fragments reflected in the candlelight looked very much like her broken heart at the moment.

She remembered the first time Li Hong called her "Mother" and pulled at her skirt in a baby voice.

Recalling his first time as regent, he nervously asked her, "Are you satisfied with the way I review memorials?"

But now, the plum blossoms in Ganye Temple have bloomed and fallen, her child is gone forever, and she and the man in front of her can never go back.

The bells and drums outside the hall suddenly rang, it was time for the morning court session.

Li Zhi stood up with the help of the table, and his fox fur coat fell to the ground. He looked at Wu Meiniang and suddenly found that she had a few shiny white hairs on her temples, which was frightening.

"Let's go see Hong'er."

He suddenly said, his voice as light as a flake of snow, "He loves cleanliness the most. Don't let any dust fall on the curtains."

Wu Meiniang didn't move, but just stared at the jade pendant around his waist - that was their token of love, and he had worn it for twenty years from Ganye Temple to Taiji Palace.

There was no answer to this night's confrontation.

Just like the unclosed "Spring and Autumn Annals" on Li Hong's desk, the white plum blossom sandwiched between the pages was swept into the folds of history by the wind and snow before it had time to wither.

Only the bronze bell at the corner of the palace was still ringing, startling a few crows that flew across the gray sky. The snow fell silently, but buried the trust of a couple, along with the life of their eldest son, in the cracks of the blue bricks of the imperial house.